Greetings Flag Branch members and friends and thanks for taking the time to join me, Pastor Jordan, for some Fine Points from Sunday’s service and message “All We Want Out Of Life”.
This statement assumes or supposes that people want something that their experience of life can provide or give to them. So as people live and experience living, they begin to make decisions and choices about what they want from what they see.
We structure our lives in order to gain, attain and achieve those things we have decided we want. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, was like the rest of us. He had prioritized his life in order to gain and achieve those things he decided he wanted. Much of that centered or capitalized upon his Jewish heritage.
He may have been well on his way to becoming a leading figure in his religion and culture with all that brings with it. But he came to believe and say that everything he had and wanted was as garbage when compared to the superior knowledge of Jesus Christ and what that knowledge brings.
Paul said he considered all things loss to gain Christ. There were three things Paul now wanted that to him were worth the loss of everything else he had ever had or wanted. Those things were to know Jesus Christ, to know the power of His resurrection and to know the fellowship of His suffering and being like Him in His death.
By knowing these things, Paul believed he would attain the means to defeat, conquer and overcome death. The way he says it is to attain the resurrection from the dead. This is all he now wanted out of life, more life. And by being a Pharisee, he believed it was possible, but until he met Jesus Christ, he didn’t know how or the means it could be achieved.
Christianity is the name that is given to this process of defeating death. At the center of this process is a man in whose words and works we must believe. They are the code that breaks the lock that death has on the souls of men.
This is why Paul said he gladly suffers the loss of everything and counts them as garbage, something to be throw out or manure in comparative value just to gain and have access to this code. He was convinced faith in Christ is that code that unlocks death’s power of over life. And this is why all we should want in life is more life that is found in faith in the testimony of Jesus Christ.
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Click the SS Daily Bible Readings for an excellent devotional and preparation for the upcoming Sunday School lesson. Don’t forget to leave a comment or question down below. As always, remember to fear God and keep His commandments.
Pastor Jordan
